National Board of Medical Examination (NBME), USA at Alfaisal University

“Founded in 1915, the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME), USA is an independent, not-for-profit organization that serves the public through its high- quality assessments of healthcare professionals. The NBME develops and manages the United States Medical License Examination (USMLE). While the individual licensing boards grant the license to practice medicine, all medical boards in the USA accept a passing score on the USMLE as evidence that an applicant demonstrates the core competencies to practice medicine.” NBME also helps international students through shelf exam for a variety of pre-clinical and clinical subjects. These exams require licensing of an educational Institute.

The Dean of College of Medicine, Dr. Khaled Al-Kattan had a vision. He wanted to expose the students also to an external system so that a bench-mark could be set to our students who were appearing progress test and local Saudi Med exam. College of Medicine, Alfaisal University got a license to execute NBME exam in 2011 for the very first time in the Kingdom. Since then, over 250 students appeared NBME (comprehensive basic science, equivalent to part 1 USMLE). The exam helped many students planning to practise in USA or somewhere else. In fact, many students who passed NBME with high score also passed USMLE at one chance and presently are practising in USA, Canada and other places in the world.

The organization of NBME is not easy. The exam takes almost 6-7 hours but it is only possible to manage because of the concerted effort and dedication of Faculty, IT and Facility personnel at Alfaisal University. At present the college organizes this activity twice in a year. The exam is open only to the students of Alfaisal University enrolled in the Clerkship phase.